We are just days away from Australia’s greatest extravaganza of racing and Victorian harness is a key part of it.

Excitingly, Melton will deliver a Victoria Cup field – and support card – fitting for such a glorious 30 hours of racing across three codes and two states.

It all starts with one of greyhound racing’s marquee events, the Million Dollar Chase, at the historic Wentworth Park track in Sydney on Friday night. The joint will be humming.

Grab some sleep and then we dive into THE biggest thoroughbred race day of the year. Yes, the combination of Everest Day at Randwick and plethora of features across Caulfield Guineas day in Melbourne trumps even Melbourne Cup or Derby Day now in my mind, and many others.

You’ll hardly have time to digest a race at Randwick when they’re behind the gates and getting ready for the next at Caulfield. There will be a feature race every 20 minutes.

Just minutes after the last races are run at Caulfield and then Randwick, the baton gets handed to Melton for a feature-crammed Victoria Cup night.

And we’ve got the platform to continue the momentum with showcased coverage going to a broad audience via Racing.com.

There is talk of dangling champion race mare Ladies In Red in front of the eyes of the lingering thoroughbred viewers to entice them to stick around and see what Melton and Victoria Cup night is all about.

Ladies In Red has serious cut-through. She’s already well-known outside of the harness bubble thanks to her incredible deeds, including 22 wins and five seconds from just 22 starts.

She is the greatest modern day mare Aussie harness has seen, but we’ve been denied her greatness for the past 11 months because of injury.

Can she come back from so long out and pick-up where she left off?

Her trials say yes, especially the latest where she easily beat outstanding stablemates Amore Vita and Encipher.

Let’s talk up her return and slot her race in those first few minutes when Racing.com switches from Caulfield to Ryan Phelan and his team at Melton.

I’ll get to the Victoria Cup soon, but Ladies In Red won’t be the only harness “queen” in action on the night.

Queen Elida, who was awesome winning at Melton last Friday in her ninth win from her past 10 starts, will be favourite to add the Group 1 Bill Collins Trotters’ Sprint.

We’ve also got the finals of the Victoria Derby, Victoria Oaks and Victoria Trotters’ Oaks – all at Group 1 level – on the card as well.

But it’s called Victoria Cup night for a reason and this Cup has all the right ingredients to be an epic.

A sign of the depth is the tight tussle and jostling just to get a spot in the field.

For mine, it looks like there are nine “certain” runners: Act Now, Better Eclipse, Captain Ravishing, Catch A Wave, Encipher, Leap To Fame, Mach Dan, Rock N Roll Doo and Spirit Of St Louis.

You can make that 10 if Hunter Cup hero Honolua Bay runs, but that remained an “if” as I penned this column.

Surely, old marvel Bulletproof Boy forced his way into the field winning the Smoken Up Sprint at Melton on Saturday night.

So, that leaves one or two spots, depending on the Honolua Bay decision.

Jason Grimson is desperate for a start with his latest “find” Hi Manameisjeff, who made it four wins from as many starts for the stable at Menangle last Saturday night.

He looks to be fighting it out for the last spot or two with mighty mare Amore Vita and eye-catching Kilmore Cup runner-up Beyond Delight.

Whatever the final make-up, the Cup should be a ripper.

It’s a night to show-off the sport with the four pin-up horses of their sphere – Leap To Fame (open class), Ladies In Red (mare) and Queen Elida (trotting mare) and Major Delight (three-year-old pacing filly) – all chasing feature wins.

The opinions expressed in The Forum are those of the author and may not be attributed to or represent policies of Harness Racing Victoria, which is the state authority and owner of thetrots.com.au.